First of all, thanks for being the wealth of knowledge of all things Diana, (including, more often than not, pictures.)

A week or so ago you posted on the funsupply forum in response to my post about my Diana 27. You showed us a beautiful pre-war 27, along with two later 27s. One appears to be the spitting image of mine, (albeit in much better condition.)

I'm curious about the other one, with the finger grooves in the fore-end. What are the differences between the two, besides the obvious visual clues? What vintage is that one, and are there many of them out there?

You are absolutely correct in your description of the nature of the 27. Perhaps one of the best overall combinations of handling, accuracy, cocking effort, trigger and firing behavior in a spring rifle that I've ever shot. (Of course, we're talking pre-magnum era, when spring rifles were only asked to do what they do best.)

I think we're all bozos on this bus.

Howdy Jim! As luck would have it, I took some new pics of that one the other day, which I will inflict upon you below (I hasten to add that the the bluing is a little thin on this one, but the gun is not nearly so brown as it appears under the camera flash).

This is a pre-WW2 model 27. It bears no markings other than the famous bow-tossing goddess and the letters "DRP" on the left side, i.e. "Deutsche Reichs Patent" (I'll leave to you to correct my German spelling!), indicating manufacture during the era of the Nazi Reich. My example has no date marking that I can find; I have a hunch this probably indicates a time near or during WW2.

Except for being about the same size and weight, this gun has no parts whatsoever in common with the postwar, ball-sear model 27. If you look carefully, you can see that the details of the gun, location of the trigger, and stock proportions are all subtly different from the post-war gun.

The stock is a rather nice piece of walnut with some unusual veining. It's very comfortable, the ergonomics of the grip being notably better for me than the later gun (which always struck me as having the trigger and grip too close together). The cross-section of the butt is unusual, being bigger at the bottom than the top.

The action is entirely steel. Except for the trigger guard, made from strip (though even that is profiled to a double-convex cross section) and rear sight, everything in the gun is forged or machined. The barrel is slightly tapered, helping to achieve excellent balance. Only the rather crude sights let it down. The front blade is a bit too wide for the tiny rear notch and may not be original.

The most amazing thing about the gun is the trigger. It is an advanced striker-type design with a 2-stage pull. The internal mechanism is entirely different from the ball-sear, yet the single adjustment screw and it's lock screw work the same (only the length of the two stages can be adjusted, not the pull weight per se). The pull is a little heavy but the release is breathtakingly crisp. Last but not least, the trigger can be set by a partial cocking stroke, and dry-fired with an identical action to actual firing.

I don't know much of its history, I've only had it a couple years. It shoots extremely well, velocity in the high 600's and is very smooth, in fact I was rather shocked at my first chrono test.

These guns do turn up from time to time. A friend picked up a nicer one than this off an auction site last year...bids were low as I don't think anyone else realized what it was!

Jim, an interesting aside, the first generation of the post-war, ball-sear model 27 bore a stronger superficial resemblance to the pre-war gun. Many had finger-groove stocks, the trigger blade was solid alloy, and the sights were similar, with no scope rail. I'm still looking for a nice example of this generation.

In the mid-60's Diana rationalized the whole sporter line, and the 27 got the more familiar plain stock and blued stamped trigger. But it gained a fully click-adjusting plastic rear sight and the dovetail rail. Later some more minor details were again changed, but the rear sight upgraded to an all-metal one. The guns you and I have are of this variant.